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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22553050">find me defenseless</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/princessofmind/pseuds/princessofmind'>princessofmind</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Post-Time Skip, no beta we die like men</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 16:43:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,333</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22553050</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/princessofmind/pseuds/princessofmind</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“Would you like me to help take your mind off it?”</i><br/><i>“Please,” he whispers.  “I need....I need to feel something, <i>anything</i> else.”</i><br/><br/>Dimitri is still plagued by nightmares, but now, after the war, he doesn't have to face them alone.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Marianne von Edmund</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>64</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>find me defenseless</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Nightmares are something Dimitri is all too familiar with, and while they’ve waned in frequency since the day Rodrigue died and the professor helped him come back to himself, he’s aware that he’ll never be rid of them completely.  At this point in his life, he may even say it would be unnerving to spend all his nights sleeping in peace, no longer visited by the specters of his past.  They’re grounding, these reminders of the people he’s lost, the hell he’s put himself through and forced others into as well, because if he were to forget, what’s to keep him from falling back into that dark place?</p>
<p>That doesn’t mean they’re pleasant, or that he enjoys them; far from.  Even after years and years, they still wake him with shouts strangled in his throat, his bedclothes sticking to his body with sweat, trembles shaking him as if he were outside in the dead of winter.  Shapes linger at the corner of his vision, a person standing just where he can’t see them, and he can feel their eyes on him, making his skin crawl.  Sometimes he can taste blood in his mouth, smell the metallic tang mixed with dirt and sweat and burnt skin.</p>
<p>Tonight is one such night, where he bolts upright in bed, his skin stained with rust as someone’s eyes bore into the back of his head, watching as he rubs at his hands with the sheets, trying and failing to get them clean, to at least wipe away <i>some</i> of the blood.</p>
<p>He can still feel the weight of Glenn’s body in his arms, can still remember the feeling of one of the soldiers grabbing him and hauling him to his feet, dragging him away.</p>
<p>Something flickers at the corner of his eye, and his breathing is ragged and painful in his chest.  The room is too empty, too cold, too full of ghosts and the lingering presence of the dead, and he can’t stay, can’t possibly try and go back to sleep.  So he dresses in the simplest clothes he can find, just a shirt and trousers, and leaves his chambers on unsteady feet.</p>
<p>His destination is in the same wing of the castle, so there’s little risk of running into another soul so late at night, or so he thinks.  As he approaches the far end of the hall, he sees a figure slipping from their room, shutting the door behind them, and they startle just as much as he does when they notice each other at the same time.</p>
<p>“Dimitri,” Marianne says, her voice hushed in the frigid stillness of the evening air.  “I was just coming to check on you.”</p>
<p>While magic itself isn’t a mystery to him, the extent of Marianne’s magic is hard for him to grasp, largely because she’s not entirely sure of it herself.  The crest she bares is so strange, and so little is known about it, there are things she can do that he’s certain must be special to her and her alone, but they can’t be entirely sure.  One such thing is the fact that his nightmares always rouse her, and there have been nights where she’s coaxed him to waking herself before he’s had the chance to seek her out in the aftermath.</p>
<p>It’s clear to him that she’d been on the way to do so, as she’s still in her nightgown, a loose robe pulled hastily on overtop and a shawl wrapped about her shoulders as well.  Faerghus winters are entirely different from anything she’s used to, and even in the many layers, she’s shivering faintly.  They’re quite the pair, both standing in the cold stone hallway in the middle of the night, shivering in the cold air.</p>
<p>“May I come in?” he asks, his voice just as quiet as hers.</p>
<p>“Of course.”  There’s no hesitation in her reply, and she opens the door that she’d just closed, stepping aside to let him in first so she can lock up behind them.</p>
<p>The room is warm, a fire of her own making burning in the hearth near her bed, and the change in scenery, the pleasant glow and the familiar trappings of her life in his kingdom (a tidy but very full desk where she reviews all his paperwork, the chaise lounge next to which her books are stacked neatly, the small collection of carved animal figurines that he gave her when they started courting properly), loosen some of the tension that had been knotting his shoulders.</p>
<p>Marianne rests her hand just below his shoulder blades, coaxing him to the bed where the sheets are still rumpled and cast aside from where she’d been sleeping moments before, and he doesn’t hesitate to sit on the edge.  Like this, they're the same height, and she strokes his hair back from his face, seemingly unbothered how the strands are damp with sweat.</p>
<p>“Would you like to talk about it?” she asks, her fingers tucking his hair behind his ears to prevent him from hiding behind it, something he still finds himself doing whenever he doesn’t wear his eyepatch around her.</p>
<p>“There’s nothing to talk about.”  As he speaks, she cups his face in her hands, thumbs brushing against his cheeks before her fingers move down, just brushing the length of his neck in a soothing, steady motion.  “It’s the same as always.  Talking about it doesn’t seem to help.”</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, and he doesn’t shrug off the apology as he otherwise might with anyone else.  If anyone can understand, it’s her; since coming to Faerghus, he’s been fetched in the dead of night twice by a frantic servant, telling him that the queen-to-be is screaming in her sleep.  Talking doesn’t seem to help her much, either.  In comparison, his more frequent but less intense nightmares seem almost like a blessing; she’s inconsolable, limp and weeping in his arms, unable to speak a single word.</p>
<p>Her fingers move back up his neck until she can tip his head upwards enough for her to kiss his forehead.  “Would you like me to help take your mind off it?”</p>
<p>The question makes his cheeks redden even as his stomach twists unpleasantly, the weight on his arms, the warmth of blood on his skin all the more pronounced when he thinks about it.  “Please,” he whispers.  “I need....I need to feel something, <i>anything</i> else.”</p>
<p>Marianne’s smile comes easier than it did when they were young, but he’s always found the sight beautiful, and to this day, she doesn’t smile if she doesn’t mean it.  So the sight of it now, when he’s shaking and wretched, feels like a benediction, like the most gentle forgiveness.  And when she kisses him, soft and sweet, he can feel the curve of her lips, and it has him smiling in return when she draws back.</p>
<p>“Are you too chilled to undress?” she asks, stepping away to cross around to the other side of the bed.</p>
<p>“No.”  It’s not the complete truth, because even in the warmth of her bedroom, there’s still goosebumps on his skin.  But he knows that she’ll warm him up quickly, so there’s no reason to keep his clothing on.  “I know that <i>you</i> are, however.”</p>
<p>Pulling his shirt off over his head, he looks over his shoulder at her just in time to see the face she’s making, and he chuckles.  “Not all of us maintain the body temperature of a small furnace, your highness,” she replies.</p>
<p>“Ah, but <i>I</i> do, which is very nearly as good, isn’t it?”  As he speaks, he slips out of his pants as well, and when he climbs onto the bed, she’s shed her shawl and robe, leaving her just in her nightgown as she joins him.</p>
<p>“You keep me warmer than anything else I’ve found,” she replies, her tone unmistakably fond as she moves the pillows around until she can sit up comfortably, somehow managing to maintain the air of composure and grace she always does even as she spreads her legs to make room for him.  “You’ll never be free of my cold hands and feet.”</p>
<p>“I’d be honored to warm your hands and feet for the rest of my days,” he murmurs, leaning forward to kiss her, lingering this time, his fingers losing themselves in her messy curls as she all but melts under his touch.</p>
<p>But she isn’t distracted for long, breaking away with a sweet, shivery little breath before fixing him with as stern a look as she can manage.  The sight of it just makes him laugh, and he turns so he can lean back against her, cradled between her thighs, his head resting on her shoulder.</p>
<p>The first time they were intimate, he’d been terrified to touch her.  His hands were rough, clumsy, and no matter how many times he washed, he felt as if he could never be rid of the blood that clung to him like a disease.  As she lay there, her pale skin flawless and almost luminous in the moonlight, he felt that to lay his hands on her would ruin her, stain her, break her.</p>
<p>Instead of growing frustrated with him, she’d taken his trembling hands in her own, kissed his palms, and asked if instead, <i>she</i> could touch <i>him</i>.</p>
<p>“Comfortable?” she asks, moving his hair out of her way (there’s a lot of that, with them; Marianne wears her hair loose in the evenings, and well, being crowned king hasn’t made Dimitri try any harder to contain his own hair) so she can kiss his cheek, just in front of his ear.</p>
<p>“Terribly so,” he answers, which is a relatively new development.  Even after they’d crossed that first hurdle of intimacy, he’d been concerned about sitting like this; she’s a slight woman, barely coming to his shoulders when they’re standing, and he’s <i>heavy</i>.</p>
<p>“Don’t forget I fought in the war, love,” she’d chastised.  “Your weight leaning against me is hardly more than I can handle.”</p>
<p>And true to her word, she always seems comfortable like this, and he’s come to enjoy the feeling of her soft thighs bracketing his hips, the press of her breasts against his back, and the way he can just....<i>relax</i>, and trust her to support him.</p>
<p>Tonight, the soft material of her nightgown separates them, but he can still feel her warmth, still smell the way her perfume clings to her even after the bath she took before retiring for the evening.  As she reaches for the bottle of oil on the table next to her bed, he allows his eyes to close, and while he still feels a gaze on him, watching him, this time it’s Marianne, not a ghost.</p>
<p>There’s several moments of quiet, broken only by the sound of the stopper being pulled from the bottle and then replaced in short measure, where he knows she’s warming the oil between her hands, not about to do anything to chill him further.  As she does so, he focuses on the steady cadence of her breathing, taking care to match his to hers, something that always calms his racing heart, helps loosen the cold knot of grief that settles in his stomach when he’s woken by memories of the past.</p>
<p>The first touch of her hand is against his neck, although she doesn’t linger there; that’s not the sort of thing he’s after, not tonight.  Instead, she drifts down his chest, movements unhurried and gentle, almost lazy, and with his eyes closed, the only thing he can focus on is the way she’s touching him; her hands are soft, slick with the oil without being messy, and she brushes over every inch of him, not skirting away from the scars that mar his body while also not paying them any special attention.  The uneven texture of the healed wounds, where the skin is puckered from being sliced with a blade or shiny and pink from being burned, are just another part of him.</p>
<p>(There’d been a night, not their first night but soon after, where she’d laid him out and kissed every single one of his scars.  It felt like it took hours for her to cover them all, each wretched reminder of what he’d done, what he’d become, and he’d cried until there were no tears left, until he could do little more than sob brokenly when she took him in hand, feeling hollowed out yet somehow <i>clean</i> as she wiped his cheeks and smiled at him.)</p>
<p>She follows the lines of his torso, fingers following the lines of his ribs, tracing his pectorals, the lines of the muscles of his abdomen.  For a moment, her fingers linger just beneath his sternum, only long enough for him to huff a laugh against her neck, before she moves on.  Even though it’s impossible, he likes to think he can hear her smile as she does so.</p>
<p>“Where are you?” she asks, her hands still stroking over his body, and while it’s sensual, these touches aren’t designed to arouse; they’re to center him, allow him to focus on something that feels good, feels safe, instead of the horrors in his head.</p>
<p>“With you,” he murmurs, tipping his head to the side so he can kiss the column of her throat, lingering and worshipful.</p>
<p>Humming in acknowledgement, she lets her touch linger on his stomach, her fingers brushing the trail of hair that leads from his navel down to his cock, which is starting to harden against his thigh the longer she has her hands on him.  Arousal creeps up on him slowly, warm and comfortable, something to bask in rather than something to be consumed by.</p>
<p>Her fingers find the sharp jut of his hips, thumbs rubbing gently as her fingers frame the shape of them, making him feel held, like she’s all around him, and he’s so aware of her right now, the way she’s started to breathe a bit faster, the way her thighs are pressing a bit more tightly against him, the curve of her body against his back, that she’s all he can think of.  There’s no ghosts here, not any longer.</p>
<p>As her hands drift back up, caressing his chest once more, he starts to lay kisses against her neck, the underside of her jaw.  They’re wet, open-mouthed things, his tongue tasting her skin, until she nudges him back enough to kiss his parted lips, letting him taste her mouth instead.  Like always, there’s sugar on her breath and lavender tea clinging to her tongue, something that he finds just as intoxicating as her perfume or the way her skin feels beneath his hands, and he groans, the motion of her lips against his own all but pulling the sound from him.</p>
<p>It rises in volume as her fingers find his nipples, already hardened in the cooler air of the room, and she begins to rub slow, firm circles over them.  Dimitri’s hands shift restlessly on the bed, one of them resting on her knee while the other grasps loosely at the sheets, his cock hardening further the longer she lingers.  The ache that settles between his legs is a sweet one, his own breath starting to quicken as she pulls more sounds from him when her thumbs press a bit harder, her lips finding his again as she slips her tongue into his mouth.</p>
<p>When they part, he cracks his eyes open, just enough to see her, blush high on her cheeks, her gaze attentive as she looks down at him with open adoration.  “Please,” is all he manages to say, but that’s all that he really <i>needs</i> to say.  There’s a hitch in her breathing, a telling shift of her hips against his back, and his eyes close again when one of her hands moves down the length of his torso again, further this time, until she can wrap her fingers around his cock.</p>
<p>While he wasn’t fully hard when she first grasps him, it only takes a few strokes to remedy that, and now he’s aching, body still relaxed against hers but with tension starting to build in his limbs as she moves her hand.  There’s something so incredibly <i>good</i> about it, even though it’s hardly any different from how he touches himself; she’s slow, her grip firm, just the way he likes it, but it fills his belly with heat at twice the pace, has his breathing growing ragged as he only barely manages not to press up against her.</p>
<p>When his toes start to curl, his thighs tensing as he grips the sheets tight, her hand stills, grasping the base of his length but nothing else.  After several long, breathless moments, he starts to relax against her, distracted from the pleasure starting to edge away from him by the way she plucks kisses from his parted lips, the fingers of her other hand starting to toy with his nipples once more.</p>
<p>Once she feels him starting to relax, she starts again, stroking with that same, maddening rhythm, and he isn’t silent this time.  He’s started to pant against her neck, groaning without shame every time she circles the head of his cock with her palm, the oil making her touch so easy and decadent.  His hips are starting to move, pressing up into her hand, but again, when his toes curl, his hand fisting in the sheets, she stops.</p>
<p>“You’re always beautiful,” she says quietly, brushing his sweaty hair out of his face as he trembles against her, almost whimpering at the loss of friction, “but never so beautiful as you are when you’re like this.”</p>
<p>He can feel the flush settling on his cheeks, creeping down his neck to pool at the top of his chest, but he can’t deny her words.  There’s nothing but the sound of her voice, the touch of her hands, the way she can draw pleasure from his body as if she’s known how for her entire life.  If she says he’s beautiful, then now, and only now, he believes her.</p>
<p>She kisses his forehead, his cheeks, his chin, and even the tip of his nose as he breathes through the instinct to rut into her grasp, to chase his release with single-minded determination, and while it takes longer this time, he eventually relaxes again, his body sagging against hers.</p>
<p>And just as it takes longer to relax, it takes almost no time at all for her to bring him back to that point, the slick sound of her hand moving along his length obscene as his cock leaks, adding to the moisture already there from the oil.  Her thighs are squeezing his hips tight, now, her hips pressing against his back as she kisses him, drinking down the way he groans and even whines.</p>
<p>“Can you wait once more?” she asks, rubbing the head of his cock with her thumb as his hips buck.  “For me, this time?”</p>
<p>“Always,” he answers, his voice throaty and rough.  For her, he can do anything, <i>would</i> do anything.</p>
<p>She’s smiling again as she kisses him, and when she presses against his shoulders, he leans forward, giving her room to maneuver out from behind him.  The loss of her touch aches sharply, and he’s so hard that he can’t think of anything else as he leans back against pillows that are warm from her body and smell deliciously like her.</p>
<p>Dimitri opens his eyes in time to see her pulling her nightgown off and over her head, and when she rejoins him on the bed, he can see that the inside of her thighs are slick, her nipples tight and all but begging to for his mouth.  Wiping her hands on her discarded clothes (which he’ll tease her about later), she straddles his stomach, once again brushing his hair back from his face, a motion that he copies with her own sleep-mussed hair.  It’s enough to have them sharing a smile before she’s shifting back, taking him in hand to guide the head of his dick to her cunt.</p>
<p>As she begins to sink down onto him, she’s slow, and careful; he’s large, very large, and while he’s never hurt her in the past, they’ve both learned that the way to ensure he never does is to let her set the pace.  It’s agonizing in the best way, the gradual way he sinks into her, her muscles clenching and relaxing, squeezing him so tight it almost hurts, and goddess, she’s always so wet.  Nothing has ever felt as good as this, and he doubts anything else ever will.</p>
<p>Marianne has her hands braced on his chest, her bottom lip caught between her teeth, the tiniest furrow of concentration between her brow as she sinks down, inch by careful inch.  It takes every ounce of willpower he possesses to keep his eyes open, but it’s worth it for the moment when she’s seated fully on him and her head lolls, a little shudder going through her body as she moans and rocks in his lap.  There’s no doubt that it feels every bit as good for her as it does for him, and seeing the pleasure on her face, feeling the way she shivers and squirms, makes his arousal soar to new heights.</p>
<p>His hands are shaking as the rest on her hips, careful not to grasp, and she leans forward to kiss him, deep and thorough, exploring his mouth until his hips buck without conscious thought and her head tips back.  A shaky, needy sound escapes her as she starts to move, riding him with the same damnably slow, damnably perfect speed that she’d been stroking him.  The arch of her body puts her at the perfect angle for him to lean forward, kissing the curve of her breast before he takes one of her nipples in his mouth, laving at it with his tongue.</p>
<p>It’s not enough to encourage her to move faster, though, because she doesn’t so much as falter, although her cunt clenches tight around him for longer, and there are moments where she stops and just sits on his cock, rocking a little, grinding against him as she savors the feeling of being full, of having so much of him inside her.  There’s no telling how much time has passed, or how much continues to pass, only that it seems to stretch on forever while also speeding by with unforgiving speed.</p>
<p>The motions of her hips grow jerky, uncoordinated, and her hands can’t seem to stay still, moving over his stomach, his chest, dragging her fingers through his hair.  She draws him away from her nipples, tipping his head back so she can kiss the line of his throat, scraping her teeth against the sensitive skin just behind his ear.</p>
<p>“I love you,” she says, her tone hushed and reverent, and he jerks underneath her, his hands falling to grab at the sheets so he doesn’t grab <i>her</i> instead.  “I forgive you, and I love you.”</p>
<p>They’re the two sweetest phrases he knows, and when she stopped protesting that he’d never done anything to her that needs to be forgiven, when she sat and thought about what it was he was really looking for when he asked for her mercy, she understood.  To be forgiven of the horrible things he’s done in his life by someone he loves, someone who <i>continues</i> to love him despite everything she knows, everything she’s seen, is more profound than can ever truly be put into words.</p>
<p>It’s with a cry of her name that he comes apart, his back bowed, every muscle in his body rigid, and he knows she must follow him, can hear the high, sweet way she whimpers, can feel the way she writhes and presses down against his cock almost desperately.</p>
<p>As he slowly starts to relax against the mattress, he can feel her resting more of her weight against her hands on his chest, and he opens his eyes (when did he close them?  Damn, he hates when he doesn’t have the presence of mind to watch her reach her own completion), pushing her unruly hair out of her face so he can meet her eyes.</p>
<p>“Someday, I’m going to remember to put hair ties on the nightstand,” she says, sounding out of breath but undeniably happy.</p>
<p>“Mm, you say that every time,” he says, coaxing her to lay down on his chest, kissing her forehead when she frowns at him.  “You look sweet, don’t fret over it.”</p>
<p>“It’s not self-consciousness,” she sighs, kissing him when he tilts his face up towards her, a clear plea for her lips against his own.  “I would just enjoy not having to work so hard to see your face.”</p>
<p>Now he’s the one frowning, but she kisses him right between the eyebrows, and he can hardly keep frowning when he’s chuckling at her.</p>
<p>When he’s gone soft, she slips from his arms and retrieves a cloth from the table next to her bed, wiping them both off before drawing the covers up over him and slipping underneath.  He doesn’t complain as she draws him into her arms, and he feels no shame as he snuggles into her chest, allowing himself to be held as she strokes his hair.</p>
<p>“Do you feel better?”</p>
<p>It takes a moment for him to realize what she means, which is enough to make him smile against her skin.  There’s no blood on his hands, no phantoms watching him from the corner of the room, no voices calling out for revenge.  Instead, he feels warm and safe, <i>loved</i> above all else.  “Much,” he murmurs, letting his arm drape comfortably over her waist, one of his legs hooked over hers.  “Thank you.”</p>
<p>“Always,” she replies, echoing his words from earlier in a way that feels fitting.  “Try and sleep, now.”</p>
<p>And when he does, this time, his dreams are sweet, and full of nothing but her.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>follow me on <a href="https://twitter.com/princessofmind_">twitter</a> to fill your timeline with our lord and savier, marianne von edmund</p></blockquote></div></div>
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